Leviathan Chronicles Chapter 24

To express my feelings on this latest installment of The Leviathan Chronicles, allow me to quote Roman Emperor and Shakespeare star Julius Caesar:

“I came. I listened. I thought it was badass.”

I don’t know if Julius Caesar actually said that. Probably not in those exact words. (He probably would have said it in Latin.) But if given the opportunity, he definitely would have said it about Leviathan 24.

But enough with me being clever in Latin, ’cause this particular chapter is full of enough epic to keep me going for longer than you’re probably willing to read…

Ok, I have to get this out of the way now and never speak of it again, because I was immensely freaked out. I may be many, many things, but squeamish is not one of them. With that out on the table, I think you can now fully appreciate the gravity of the situation when I say that certain parts of Chapter 24 had me curled up in a ball on the chair going “Ah! No! What? What is he– AW DOOD DON’T DO THAT! AH! PAIN! OMG WHAT?!” and making other such grammatically incorrect exclamations of shock. If you listened, then you’ll know what I mean and probably had similar reactions yourself. If you haven’t yet listened, well, you’re in for a surprise. Things rarely disturb me enough to the point where I have to pause the show and do the Heebie-Jeebie Jumping Jacks, but I think it happened at least twice in this chapter. Aargh.

On a related note, some things need to be said about Bennu. I always knew that Bennu was no good. People who go around in white hooded robes are either assassins or evil, and I’m pretty sure that Bennu might actually be a bit of both… but one thing’s for sure, he’s definitely a traitor, and he obviously let Harlequinn escape after the OMG bit with the blowtorch: These are both not good things. I dislike Bennu. It’s kind of how I feel about Whitt Roberts — I want them both to die a slow, painful death, possibly smothered in jellyfish, but at the same time they’re both such great villains that I’d miss them too much… the more hate I have towards elements of something, be it audio, TV/movie, or book, the more I love the thing as a whole. It’s a complicated system, but it works.

Now that we’re past the bits that still make me shudder, I want to take a brief moment to point out Leviathan’s educational value. All my life, I thought that a Sherpa was a fluffy dog, kind of like a husky. I was very surprised and a little relieved to find out that Sherpas are in fact a Tibetan ethnic group, and that Leviathan didn’t all of a sudden feature talking fluffy dogs. See, you learn something new every day. With that said, let the plot summary commence.

The penultimate chapter of Leviathan Chronicles’ first amazing season is full of twists and surprises and scary things and squee-worthiness, capped off by an ending I never saw coming in a million years. The episode begins at of Mt. Chenglung with Oberlin, Mai Lee, and Whitt Roberts. Whitt is being an a complete arse to the Sherpa guides (who, at this point, I still believed were dogs), and pretty much to everyone in general. No surprise there. He’s a mean person. In fact, he’s pure evil, to the point where he has the guides chased down and torn apart by the group’s new porters: giant blood-red genetically engineered monstrosities called ‘Enforcers’, presumably of a similar variety to the ones that chased down Macallan and Tulley about a dozen chapters ago. These appear to be Enforcer 2.0, however, since they take orders and fetch and carry instead of just rampaging Hulk-style, and they proceed to carry Oberlin, Mai Lee, and W.R up the mountain in cushy heated style.

Now, I remember quite clearly the first time Leviathan Chronicles really made me spazz out completely — I was on the way home on the school bus (lifetimes ago) listening to (If I remember correctly) Chapter 16, which involved a ginormous kung-fu battle. I was spazzing out for a solid ten minutes afterwards… and now, a year and a half later, Chapter 24 finds us back at the scene in the temple where the Chinese government took the Starstone. Whitt Roberts reveals that while the government thought that the alien artifact was the most important part of the temple, they were sorely mistaken… the most important part was the base the Starstone was sitting on — it turns out to be a giant transmitter that leads deep underground to the biggest Keyhole in the world. Whitt opens the Keyhole, and something unbelievable is awaiting on the other side…

In between all of that, there’s my favorite part of the whole episode. It’s on a much lighter note from everything else, and it featured my second largest squee-moment of the chapter. Down in Leviathan, Tulley goes for a walk and discovers a wonderful ‘dive bar’ tucked away in a corner. After displaying a bit of nautical fanboy knowledge to the proprietor, the two hit it off and begin sharing drinks and spicy squid chips. (For the record, those sound delicious…) This is the part where he reveals that he has feelings of some sort for Macallan, which made me have a little bit of a moment, but it’s also the part where a certain reference is made that caused me to be very happy.

See, a while back my other most favorite audio drama of all time, Darker Project’s The Byron Chronicles, referenced Leviathan Chronicles. (In case you didn’t know, the Big Bad in that show is a creature called Leviathan, so…it’s funny.) Ages ago, when I first heard the trailer for Leviathan Chronicles (on the end of a Byron episode, no less) my little conspiracy-theorist mind went wild and rabid over the possibility that the two shows were connected and had some evil world-conquering scheme. It might not have been true at the time, but it definitely is now. Probably. Anyway, all I know is that one second, two characters were discussing different drinks, and the next, there was an epic Byron reference that utterly made my day again.

Tulley is a great character — he (and originally Macallan) serve as audience surrogates, asking the questions we all wish we could ask, and generally being awesome. It’d be impossible for me to single out one character out of the entire cast whom I could point to as my favorite, but Tulley is definitely in the running… but, since bad things usually happen to characters I particularly like, (case in point, Oberlin and Harlequinn — it’s almost eerie) it’s only a matter of time before death happens. On that note, I usually try to keep my wild theories in check, but this time I’m gonna spew out a couple about the finale episode. I’m pretty sure that a major character will die, and that we’ll find out more about Evangeline’s mysterious project. (My money’s still on “spaceship”, but we’ll see…) I’m also going to throw out there the fact that I’m pretty sure Sienshun and co. are the “bad guys”, instead of Evangeline as we’ve been lead to believe. I’m also looking forward the the ‘showdown’ mentioned in the title… I’m planning the Leviathan Listening Party now… it will be spectacular.

This episode was an hour and six minutes long, but it seemed too short for me — I think I can safely say that this was the best episode of the series to date. Anything that makes 66 minutes feel like 6 minutes definitely deserves the title of ‘best thing ever’. I can’t wait until the next chapter, even though it means that there’ll be no more full-length episodes for a while. However, we won’t be left completely without Leviathan goodness after Chapter 25 drops — among other things there’s the launch of the new website, new merchandise, Leviathan minisodes, and last but definitely not least, Season 1 Director’s Cut. Those are in the ranking of the four best words I’ve ever heard, right up there with ‘Here, have free bacon!” and “Snow day, no school.”

I don’t think there’s much else I can say, except WOW. I was left speechless, something else that doesn’t happen on a daily basis, and judging by the fact that Chapter 25 is shaping up to be about 400 times better, I’m worried about my sanity as the day approaches…

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To listen to this episode, click the pretty picture up at the top! Coming soon are Gaia’s Voyages Episode 7 (BSAP), Twilight Theater, and hopefully, The Byron Chronicles Season 3 premiere!

2 Responses to “Leviathan Chronicles Chapter 24”

OMG, I totally agree with you. I listened to Chapter 24 (which I recently
got my cube-neighbor into) at work. I had to stop and do an “eww, that’s gross!” at a couple of spots as well and I am like you, I am not a very squeemish person at all! I absolutely love Byron Chrons. and so obviously I did a squee fangirl moment when both shows mention each other.;) When does the Byron Chrons. start again anyway? The thing with Sienshun really made me wonder if he really is the good guy? Love the whole thing with Tully and Oberlin. Man, I really would love the episode where the two finally meet after all this time!!! I loved their banters… Ugh, hopefully it won’t be too long before the next chapter drops and be even twice as long!;) Love your blog! Perhaps you can enlighten me on how “season” work on Darker Projects because the whole thing is a bit puzzling for a newbie. Thanks!

I have no idea what’s in store where Leviathan is concerned, but I’m absolutely sure that it’ll be wonderful.

As for The Byron Chronicles, the show is apparently starting up again at the end of this month or the beginning of the next, from what I’ve heard — but that was some time ago, so things may have changed. As for how seasons work/are structured, I’m not entirely sure… it seems different for every show, or maybe I’m just missing the big picture. (Definitely a possibility.) Season 2 of TBC just ended a couple months ago, but I for one am not complaining about the fact that I won’t have to wait until September for Season 3 to start.

Thanks for reading (and listening!) and congrats on getting your co-worker hooked — infecting other people with your nefarious listening habits is one of the best parts about being a fan of audio drama. =D